The Benefits of Diverse Teams in the Workplace
Creating and fostering diverse teams within an organization can improve the overall productivity, culture and morale of the company. A diverse team can help organizations discover unique solutions and make effective business decisions. Knowing how such a team can benefit your company may allow you to source and find individuals with distinct backgrounds and skills. In this article, we explore more about diverse teams, including how they benefit organizations and some tips for overcoming team obstacles.
What is a diverse team?
A diverse team is a group of individuals who have different backgrounds and skills that work together as a team to achieve company goals. They might have differences regarding age, nationality, ethnicity, religious background, personal history, professional background, skills, gender or political preferences. These differences can help companies discover creative solutions and innovative methods to improve operations and reach operational goals.
How do diverse teams benefit companies?
Creating diverse teams within your organization can help improve operational achievements and market performance. Here are some key benefits to creating teams with different backgrounds and abilities:
Increased creativity and innovation
Crafting a team with varied thoughts, backgrounds and inputs can help your team discover creative ways to solve problems. This is because each team member has different perspectives and ideas that more homogenous teams might not uncover. With increased team creativity, teams also benefit from improved innovation.
Enhanced problem-solving and decision making
Teams who create and discover innovative solutions can make more informed decisions. This can help them solve problems faster and offer solutions that benefit the performance of a company. Furthermore, teams are more likely to analyze data and information carefully before making decisions that impact a company.
Strengthened skill sets
Employees who work together in a diverse environment can develop and expand their existing skill sets. This can benefit a company because enhanced skill sets may result in improved productivity, performance and quality of work. Some examples of skills that employees develop in a diverse team environment include communication, negotiation, problem-solving and critical thinking abilities.
Boosted profits and revenue
Teams who provide unique and quick solutions for a company can improve the competitive advantage the company has over other organizations within the same market. This advantage can help increase sales profits and overall revenue for the organization. Additionally, effective teams can reduce the time taken to complete projects. This then allows them to start new company projects which can improve the company's ability to generate supplemental profit and revenue.
Heightened employee engagement
Diverse teams allow individuals to actively participate and share their ideas. This can result in increased engagement and performance across a team. This is because each individual may feel more motivated to reach company goals. Additionally, since diverse teams often lead to higher rates of satisfaction and empowerment, they can also reduce employee turnover rates.
Improved company reputation
Creating varied teams can improve a company's reputation and attract new team talents. Furthermore, diverse teams can offer different insights when interacting with external customers. This can allow employees to better understand a wide range of customer needs and influence customers' perceptions of the organization.
Strengthened team morale
Teams who can share their ideas and opinions are going to be happier and more content in their workplace environment. This positivity directly influences the rest of the team's attitudes and motivation, which can increase the overall morale and productivity of a team. Motivated and content teams are also likely to influence the performance of the rest of a company, enhancing an organization's culture and morale.
Diverse team challenges
Before creating a diverse team in your organization, it's important to consider some obstacles these teams might encounter. Being aware of these obstacles beforehand can help you create a more effective team that can overcome these obstacles. Some challenges these teams might encounter include:
Communication barriers: When creating a team with different backgrounds, some team members may be native speakers of different languages. This can establish communication barriers and reduce the overall effectiveness of the team.
Culture differences: When you craft teams with different cultural backgrounds, it can sometimes create conflict between the team. This can affect the performance, creativity and workflow of the team, which may impact workplace relationships.
Slower decision-making: In some instances, varied teams can decrease timely decision-making capabilities. Disagreements or multiple perspectives can lead to fewer team decisions being made and decrease the effectiveness of the team.
Team bias: When teams are analyzing processes or procedures, members might form a bias towards one solution or another. This can create conflict and prevent teams from discovering solutions that can benefit the organization.
Tips to overcome team obstacles
Here are several tips to help you overcome the team diversity obstacles mentioned above:
Identify language and communication barriers: Identifying potential language barriers before final team creation can help you implement countermeasures to improve communication. Adding a translator or encouraging your team to become familiar with the different languages of other team members can dramatically improve the team's communication abilities.
Establish working boundaries: Some teams can benefit from establishing working boundaries to prevent cultural conflict. This can include setting conversational boundaries about discussing cultural, religious or political beliefs.
Implement deadlines: Deadlines can help teams focus and reach decisions promptly. It can also help teams collaborate and reach definitive solutions rather than creating conflict.
Assign a team mediator: Assigning a team member to mediate discussions or conflicts prevents debates or arguments from occurring and can help the team productively reach decisions. This can also allow team members to convey their concerns or struggles without creating internal discord.
Analyze potential bias: To analyze potential team bias, it's important to know your team members as individuals. Remove bias opportunities by ensuring all team members convey their thoughts, concerns and ideas. Ensuring all team members take part in team collaboration can also improve your team's relationships and effectiveness.